] Date: Thu 19th June, 1997 Source: The Scotsman, Edinburgh, UK (http://www.scotsman.com) Contact: Addled by drugs Editorial comment QUESTION: How best to express the dangers of drugs to a young, fashionconscious audience? Simple: tell them only that "the majority" of their peers are busy getting high. The number of teenagers then prepared to reject what is so clearly the done thing is likely to be smaller than you might have hoped, of course. In your innocence, you might even find this surprising. If so, you have no business running a health education campaign. At best, the latest poster campaign by Scotland Against Drugs is another example of society's failure to grasp the simple facts about drugs and young people. Neither psychology nor peer pressure among teenagers is remotely understood while the attempt to shock amounts, instead, almost to an incitement to abuse. Besides, who would be shocked, and why? If the majority of 16year olds have experimented with drugs they understand the extent of the phenomenon far better than any advertising agency. If the statistic in question, meanwhile, seems only to confirm that drug use is normal, public money has been spent to damage public health. In other words, back to the drawing board.